Letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on Community Energy

Wednesday 20^th March 2024

Claire Coutinho MP
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET

Dear Secretary of State,

Re: Community Energy

Over recent years, the economic and security risks posed to the United Kingdom from our dependence upon overseas energy has been made clear to all. Not only does our reliance upon the global energy market leave us vulnerable to the whims of autocrats, but British consumers find themselves helplessly exposed to profiteering by energy companies.

In contrast to this, community energy—where local people own and control renewable projects like wind turbines and solar farms, helps to secure our national energy independence and enables profits to be retained locally, reducing energy bills and boosting local economies. Clearly, this would be a welcome change for both families suffering from the cost-of-living crisis and the UK’s stagnating economy.

For my own community, the potential increase in local energy generation community energy offers would help us to manage the energy supply issues in our local network which have previously resulted in the privatised National Grid blackballing major new high-quality job opportunities in the town.

The Government previously announced it would invest £10m in a new national Community Energy Fund. While this is a step in the right direction, it does not do nearly enough to reverse the damage caused by how the sector, in the words of the Government’s former Energy Minister and Net Zero Tsar, has been “neglected by Government”.

The Labour Party recently announced as part of its Local Power Plan that it would invest over £1bn a year in local renewable energy generation, with at least £400m of that reserved for community energy. That scale of investment would enable hundreds more communities across the country to benefit from community energy, and rapidly increase our domestic clean energy capacity.

I am writing to you to ask, as the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if you would commit to increasing the level of funding available for community energy schemes and support provided to local authorities to promote community energy locally.

There has never been a better time to invest in cheap, clean energy produced and owned right here in the UK. With further support, the country can unleash the vast potential of community energy and secure a greener, fairer future for our communities.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Lamb,
Labour candidate for Crawley